Good news for Nintendo. The company has won a lawsuit filed against it by the Quintal Research Group. Given the situation, of course the case would be dismissed, but you always wonder in these kinds of cases.
Here’s what happened. A patent lawyer and inventor was holding a patent. Quintal is his company. Richard Esty Peterson filed for US patent 7,425,944 in 2008. It covers a control scheme for gaming or PDA devices in which the buttons are around a screen. Quintal was taking Nintendo to court over the Game Boy Advance, DS, DSi, and 3DS, since they’re handhelds that involve buttons around a screen, even though this patent was filed after the release of the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and even Game Boy Advance and DS. The dismissal means that the Federal Judge Saundra Armstrong didn’t think Quintal’s assertion was valid.
Which makes sense, because Nintendo and other companies had been making handheld electronic products with those kinds of control schemes for years. We’ll have to wait and see if Quintal tries to go after another company. Maybe Sony for the PSP and Vita?
Source: Gamasutra